This document describes day to day usage of the TortoiseSVN client.
It is not an introduction to version control
systems, and not an introduction to Subversion
(SVN). It is more like a place you may turn to when you know
approximately what you want to do, but don't quite remember how
to do it.

This document is also a work in progress, just as TortoiseSVN and
Subversion are. If you find any mistakes, please report them to
the mailing list so we can update the documentation. Some of
the screenshots in the Daily Use Guide (DUG) might not reflect the
current state of the software. Please forgive us. We're working on
TortoiseSVN in our free time.

In order to get the most out of the Daily Use Guide:

You should have installed TortoiseSVN already.

You should be familiar with version control systems.

You should know the basics of Subversion.

You should have set up a server and/or have access
to a Subversion repository.

General Features

This section describes some of the features of TortoiseSVN which apply
to just about everything in the manual. Note that many of these features
will only show up within a Subversion working copy.

Icon Overlays

Figure 4.1. Explorer showing icon overlays

One of the most visible features of TortoiseSVN is the icon
overlays which appear on files in your working copy. These
show you at a glance which of your files have been modified.
Refer to the section called “Icon Overlays” to find out
what the different overlays represent.

Context Menus

Figure 4.2. Context menu for a directory under version control

All TortoiseSVN commands are invoked from the context menu of the windows
explorer. Most are directly visible, when you right click
on a file or folder. The commands that are available depend on whether the
file or folder or its parent folder is under version control or not.
You can also see the TortoiseSVN menu as part of the Explorer file menu.

Tip

Some commands which are very rarely used are only available in the
extended context menu. To bring up the extended context menu, hold
down the Shift key when you right click.

In some cases you may see several TortoiseSVN entries. This is not a bug!

Figure 4.3. Explorer file menu for a shortcut in a versioned folder

This example is for an unversioned shortcut within a versioned folder, and
in the Explorer file menu there are three entries
for TortoiseSVN. One is for the folder, one for the shortcut itself,
and the third for the object the shortcut is pointing to.
To help you distinguish between them, the icons have an indicator in the
lower right corner to show whether the menu entry is for a file,
a folder, a shortcut or for multiple selected items.

If you are using Windows 2000 you will find that the context menus are
shown as plain text, without the menu icons shown above. We are aware that
this was working in previous versions, but Microsoft has changed the way
its icon handlers work for Vista, requiring us to use a different display
method which unfortunately does not work on Windows 2000.

Drag and Drop

Figure 4.4. Right drag menu for a directory under version control

Other commands are available as drag handlers, when you right drag
files or folders to a new location inside working copies or when you
right drag a non-versioned file or folder into a directory
which is under version control.

Common Shortcuts

Some common operations have well-known Windows shortcuts, but do
not appear on buttons or in menus. If you can't work out how
to do something obvious, like refreshing a view, check here.

F1

Help, of course.

F5

Refresh the current view. This is perhaps the single
most useful one-key command. For example ...
In Explorer this will refresh the icon overlays on your working copy.
In the commit dialog it will re-scan the working copy
to see what may need to be committed.
In the Revision Log dialog it will contact the repository
again to check for more recent changes.

Ctrl-A

Select all. This can be used if you get an error message
and want to copy and paste into an email. Use Ctrl-A
to select the error message and then ...

Ctrl-C

... Copy the selected text.

Authentication

If the repository that you are trying to access is password protected, an
authentication Dialog will show up.

Figure 4.5. Authentication Dialog

Enter your username and password. The checkbox will make TortoiseSVN
store the credentials in Subversion's default directory:
%APPDATA%\Subversion\auth in three subdirectories:

svn.simple contains credentials
for basic authentication (username/password).
Note that passwords are stored using the WinCrypt API,
not in plain text form.

If you want to clear the authentication cache for all
servers, you can do so from the Saved Data page
of TortoiseSVN's settings dialog. That button will clear all cached
authentication data from the Subversion auth
directories, as well as any authentication
data stored in the registry by earlier versions of TortoiseSVN.
Refer to the section called “Saved Data Settings”.

If you want to clear authentication for one realm only then you will
have to dig into those directories, find the file which contains the
information you want to clear and delete the file.

Some people like to have the authentication data deleted when they
log off Windows, or on shutdown. The way to do that is to use a shutdown
script to delete the %APPDATA%\Subversion\auth
directory, e.g.

Maximizing Windows

Many of TortoiseSVN's dialogs have a lot of information to display,
but it is often useful to maximize only the height, or only the width,
rather than maximizing to fill the screen. As a convenience, there are
shortcuts for this on the Maximize button.
Use the middle mouse button to maximize vertically,
and right mouse to maximize horizontally.